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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
473 points Bostonian | 4 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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anonfordays ◴[19 Nov 24 16:58 UTC] No.42185578[source]▶
Does the following phenomenon have a name?

Open an article about the detrimental politicization of something, click to the social media profile of the offender and you know with high certainty the exact kind of poster they are and posts they make/repost.

replies(2): >>42186650 #>>42187019 #
tylersmith ◴[19 Nov 24 18:30 UTC] No.42186650[source]▶
Yes, it's called bias.
replies(1): >>42186853 #
1. anonfordays ◴[19 Nov 24 18:52 UTC] No.42186853[source]▶
It's accurate, so by definition it cannot be bias.
replies(2): >>42187220 #>>42188115 #
2. jpollock ◴[19 Nov 24 19:33 UTC] No.42187220[source]▶
It's a cognitive bias, since we remember the events that match our expectations and don't keep track of experiment over time.
replies(1): >>42187939 #
3. anigbrowl ◴[19 Nov 24 20:49 UTC] No.42187939[source]▶
This is a rather large assumption. I have had plenty of times when I thought I had noticed a trend of some sort and turned out to be mistaken, and so stopped relying on the heuristic. Insisting that everyone is biased (as opposed to observing that anyone can be) is a good way to filter out unexpected and perhaps unwelcome observations.
4. Manuel_D ◴[19 Nov 24 21:09 UTC] No.42188115[source]▶
You perceive it to be accurate, that doesn't mean it is accurate. Furthermore, these sorts of things are highly subject to post-rationalization. Did you write down on a piece of paper what you expected before you clicked? Or did you just click and think to yourself "yup, that's what I expected"?